When reading these news reports, it is very important to bear in mind that NCL has not apparently agreed that the dismissals were related to security issues. Rather, NCL stated that the separations were related to "probationary period dismissals", which are common in most companies. NCL has had a lot of problems with crews on the Hawaii ships and has had considerable turnover on them. Maybe, these employees were just lazy, or surly, or not willing to speak English. Also, we should bear in mind that the EEOC, depending on which office is involved, can make really wacky litigation decisions. Some EEOC offices have remarkably unbalanced decision processes, based on the personal agendas of the people in charge of each office. In my pre-retirement life as an in-house corporate lawyer, with lots of employment law issues on my plate, I dealt with a number of EEOC offices and officials, some of which and whom were rational and some of which and whom were certifiable. Thus, it is not probably practical at this point either to condemn NCL as a racist company or to compliment NCL for protecting us all from a terrorist threat ("better safe than sorry"). As a rather extreme social liberal and a long-time ACLU member (to the distress of my former corporate bosses), I try to take the broader view to such cases. We don't know enough about the NCL case to make any reasonable assessment. No flames, please. Just my not so humble opinion. Cheers, Fred